Baby corn is high demand nutritional vegetable in India. Although its demand among consumers and growers was increasing day by day, it is noted that only few available inbreds and hybrids available in both public and private sector with respect to baby corn. Even though the initiation of research programmes for baby corn started in early 1990s, still there is a dearth of population improvement programmes with respect to baby corn in India. In this regard a population improvement programme was initiated by considering two diverse heterotic populations viz., PDM 4441 × PDM 53 (Population A) and HKI 1105 × HKI 323 (Population B) following modified reciprocal recurrent selection. The derived test single cross hybrids were evaluated for baby corn traits.

The inbred lines P11 and P27 were considered as potential transgressive segregants with HKI 1105 and HKI 323 as testers respectively for the traits namely baby corn yield per plant without husk (g), baby corn yield per plant with husk (g) and number of cobs per plant. In population B, with respect to PDM 4441 as tester, line H13 transgressed positively for various important baby corn traits such as baby corn yield per plant without husk (g), baby corn weight per plant with husk (g) and number of cobs per plant. Considering PDM 53 as tester, lines H61 and H94 were regarded as best transgressive segregants for baby corn yield per plant without husk (g), baby corn weight per plant with husk (g) and number of cobs per plant. While the lines H99, H94 and H6 transgressed superiorly in desirable direction with common tester PDM 260-1 for the traits viz., baby corn weight per plant without husk (g), baby corn yield per plant with husk (g) and number of cobs per plant.